Love Between the Pages: 8 Romances for Booklovers Read online

  The manager gave Sadie another smile and said, “All right, then. We may as well get started. Mr. Blaise has asked us to provide a selection of rings for you to choose from. We do have a jeweler on call, so if you don’t see anything you like, or if the ring you select needs to be re-sized, that is not a problem. Not a problem at all.”

  He spoke in such reassuring tones that Sadie very much doubted anything would be a problem for him. She amused herself by thinking up several outrageous requests she might make and guessing which would be the one that made him blink.

  He gestured toward a series of blue velvet boxes lined up on his desk, the lids already opened hopefully. When Sadie looked at them, her stomach hurt. She hadn’t ever gotten to the stage in a relationship where a ring was wanted to symbolize a commitment. She wished she wasn’t doing this now. What if this was the only chance she ever had to pick out a ring? Didn’t excited brides and grooms pick out their rings together, dreaming of tomorrows full of sunshine and laughter? Making budgets and throwing them away for just the right ring? The boxes in their neat row mocked her. Her picking out a ring to wear was only pretend, only an act, yet somehow it seemed wrong to pretend about this.

  You have too much imagination. Gramps used to say that to her before kissing her on the top of the head. She smiled at the manager and said, “I don’t think I want diamonds at all. What about colored stones?” An emerald or a ruby seemed more like a ring anyone might wear and less like an engagement ring that signaled a promise — a promise she and Jordan had never made.

  The manager nodded, then went around his desk to pick up the phone and murmur his request. “It will be just a moment,” he said, hanging up and giving her the no problem at all smile. She took the leather armchair in front of his desk to wait, wondering if he would think it was rude if she took a book out of her bag to pass the time instead of sitting here awkwardly trying to think of something to say.

  “Is this your first visit to New York?” he asked pleasantly, and Sadie glanced reflexively at her clothes. She was right; her pastel sundress advertised rube from the sticks. Well, she supposed that was what she was.

  “No, not my first time,” she said. “But it has been a few years.”

  He made a few general remarks about attractions she must be sure not to miss and she assured him she would not. Then a soft knock sounded at the door and he issued a quiet command to enter. So that was one thing she had in common with the rich folks who stayed here. She liked it quiet, too. She watched as the cadaverous concierge came in with a leather case, which the manager unlocked using a key from a ring on his desk. Reaching inside the case, he withdrew a few more of the blue velvet ring boxes. This time, instead of lining them up on his desk, he brought them to where she sat, pulling a small table over and setting the boxes down there.

  She glanced at the rings, mostly classic styles like marquise-cut emeralds and cabochon-style rubies, none of which interested her. Then one of the rings captured her attention. It contained a river of color, with small precious and semi-precious stones set in three layers around a red-gold band, winking pink and blue and red and green. A rainbow after the rain. She grinned. It wasn’t a quiet ring, but it wasn’t an engagement ring, either. She immediately felt better and said, “That’s the one.”

  The manager lifted the ring from the box and held it out to her. She took it and slipped it on, delighted to find that it fit perfectly. A little like Cinderella’s slipper. Though of course you couldn’t call Jordan Prince Charming. Although the manager did remind her a little of the Grand Duke.

  “Perfect!” she exclaimed, admiring the play of light over the stones. She’d have to give it back when this charade was over, but she was going to enjoy it for now. She got to her feet and picked up her bag. She wanted to kiss the manager on the cheek for making this easier than it might otherwise have been. She stopped herself in time, remembering that she wasn’t in small town Ohio anymore.

  “Very good,” the manager said, packing the rest of the boxes away in the case, then locking it and handing it back to the concierge. She refrained from kissing him, too. “I’m sure Mr. Blaise will be pleased.”

  Sadie was equally sure he wouldn’t be, but if he’d wanted her to wear a certain kind of ring, he should have been there for the selection of it. He could hardly kick over her choice otherwise.

  A moment later, she was in the lobby again, blinking and turning around in a slow circle as she tried to spot Jordan. There he was. Back to her, talking on his cell phone. Again.

  She rolled her eyes and walked over to where he stood, jogging his arm a little to get his attention. He glanced up at her touch, his eyes barely focusing on her as he listened intently to the person on the other end of the line. He finally recognized her, then held up one finger to indicate he would be done in a moment. Such attentiveness. No wonder the only way he could get a fiancée was to hire one.

  When he finally folded the cell phone away, he took her elbow without comment and steered her through the lobby and out the door.

  “All set?” he asked, not even glancing at the ring on her hand as he towed her determinedly to the town car idling under the canopy. Her arm tingled where he touched it. She wanted to pull free. Would that seem rude? On the other hand, grabbing her elbow and pulling her along wasn’t precisely the epitome of polite behavior. But in all honesty? She hadn’t tingled in so long she practically didn’t mind.

  Peter had the passenger door open by the time she stepped off the curb. He looked at the ring and tilted a brow at her. He noticed. Maybe she’d have an adventure with him. She slid into the backseat of the car and scooted over to give Jordan room. He left a good eighteen inches of space between them, and Sadie couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. She didn’t mind a little tingling, but she expected trying to carry on any kind of flirtation would yield nothing but frustration when it came to Mr. Jordan Blaise.

  Thankfully, he didn’t use his cell phone again on the way to the hospital, and its ringer stayed blessed quiet. Jordan himself stayed quiet, too, but this was less of a blessing because if she hoped to pass herself off as his fiancée, she needed to know something about him, like for instance his favorite food and where he went to college. Right now, she probably knew less about him than the janitor who emptied his trash did. The difficulty was that she didn’t know quite where to start. Talking wasn’t usually something she had any problem with. But Jordan left her a little tongue-tied.

  She took in his sharp angled face, his lean tough body in its elegant suit. That was the problem right there. She was tongue-tied because she wasn’t accustomed to his type. She found him attractive, yes, but that didn’t mean anything. It just meant she didn’t see many pirates in Cedar Valley, Ohio, and so of course, this one drew her attention. She wasn’t about to be fooled by biology, though. He was so wrong for her, he couldn’t be more wrong. Look at her: she couldn’t even think of anything to say to him. How could she possibly have any kind of relationship with a man she couldn’t talk to?

  Jordan didn’t even notice her, which was one of the ways she could tell she was all wrong for him. When she found him, the one she would share her future with, they would look at each other and know. She was pretty sure, anyway. That was how it had been for Gran and Gramps. As a child, she’d never tired of hearing Gramps tell the story and watching the faint blush on Gran’s cheeks. It had been the same for her parents, too, Gran had always sworn, though Sadie didn’t remember them at all. They met each other at a dance, and they knew, Gran said. That was what Sadie wanted, and she might as well dream. Never settle, Aunt Gertrude always said, and she never had.

  Jordan was staring out the car window as the streets slipped past. What was he thinking? About a deal he was getting ready to close? Or about his mother? Impulsively, she asked, “What’s your mother like?”

  He gave her a startled look for breaking the silence, and so she added, “I just thought I should know a little about you, if I’m going to play your fiancée.”
r />   His expression asked Then why did you ask about my mother? and he answered her concern rather than her question. “I’m thirty-seven years old. Never married, though not for lack of women interested in dragging me to the altar.”

  Ooh. She caught Peter’s glance in the rearview mirror and said calmly, “So that explains why you had to hire me.”

  His lips quirked. Touché. He said, “I’m president and CEO of Biochem Research, which I founded twelve years ago. Not long after college.”

  “Yale or Harvard?” It had to be one or the other.

  “MIT.”

  “You don’t look like a geek.”

  He didn’t respond to that but turned to look out the window again. What was so fascinating out there? She knew the answer: there wasn’t anything fascinating out there. He just didn’t want to talk about himself. Which, in her experience of people in general and of businessmen in particular, was unusual.

  “That’s it?” she demanded. “You’re thirty-seven, unmarried, and run a company? You think that’s all your fiancée needs to know about you?”

  “That’s all my girlfriends have ever needed to know.”

  She bit back the remark that immediately sprang to her lips. The response was so clearly meant to be a conversation ender that she probably ought to let it end the conversation until she worked out what it meant. Maybe he liked having awful girlfriends. Maybe he was an awful boyfriend, so it all worked out fairly. So far, he hadn’t impressed her very much as boyfriend material. Maybe there really wasn’t anything else to know. That was always possible.

  Then the little finger of compassion that was the bane of her existence poked her heart. Imagine what that would be like, the compassion prompted. Imagine having only significant others who didn’t care to know more about you than that you had adequate employment.

  Drat. Why did she have to be such a nice person, always able to see the other person’s point of view? It made it hard to stay irritated for very long, even if she tried. Maybe he ended the conversation because he really didn’t know there was more conversation to be had.

  She’d always known men weren’t after her for her looks or her money and if her relationships hadn’t been all that successful, at least they had been between people honestly trying to learn about each other, honestly trying to care about each other. Some tried a little harder than others, that was true, but even so. What would it be like if you had to constantly wonder why your companion was with you? Especially if you were a sensitive person.

  It was Jordan’s own fault. Surely he could find someone who didn’t care about his money and his admitted gorgeousness, if he tried. She’d bet good money he hadn’t ever tried very hard. He was too busy making a fortune and running his company. He probably went out with whatever women put themselves in his way, which would be women with ulterior motives, whereas if he had tried a little harder, it would be a different story. But if that wasn’t so like a man —

  She shook herself. Even Aunt Gertrude with her admittedly strong views on men had warned her against that way of thinking, drawing sweeping conclusions about men in general, and she didn’t know Jordan well enough to make any conclusions about him in particular, anyway. She tried to remember how they’d gotten on the subject of relationships. Right. She needed to know a little more about him if she hoped to pass herself off as his fiancée. She steeled herself and tried again. “What’s your favorite color?”

  He gave a short, un-amused laugh. This time, he turned away from the window to look at her. “You think knowing something like that means you know anything about me?” he demanded.

  Stung, she snapped, “Seeing as I doubt you’ll spill your guts about your hopes, dreams, and aspirations to me any time soon, it seems like a good place to start.”

  “I have already attained all of my hopes, dreams, and aspirations,” he said coolly.

  “Lucky you,” Sadie said, just as coolly. What an infuriating man. No wonder his driver was his best friend — and called him “Mr. Blaise.” Obviously, the effort of actively establishing and maintaining a relationship of any kind was beyond what he wished to exert. Then that annoying little finger of compassion stabbed her in the heart again. She was going to have to do something about it someday. The compassion said, He’s thirty-seven years old, unmarried, owns a business, and all of his hopes and dreams are ended?

  What would be sadder than that? Sadie still had hopes and dreams. She’d bet when she was in the nursing home reading the erotic romances in the library she’d still have hopes and dreams. They might be hopes of chocolate pudding for dessert and dreams of finishing a chapter before bedtime, but still. It was a more revealing comment than he could have intended. She supposed he had meant it to illustrate his success and to cut off any further conversation but now she knew more about the man than she bet most people did.

  “Your mother has cancer?” she asked tentatively, deciding that if he closed off one avenue, she could at least try another. She didn’t want to make a gaffe when she met his mother.

  “Breast cancer,” he said. Then, like he was pulling thorns from his flesh: “They did surgery last year but she’s had a relapse.”

  So it’s the bad kind, she almost said but held her tongue in time. “I’m sorry she’s struggling with that.”

  “So am I.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He’s dead,” Jordan said briefly, and then, with a sigh, added, “He died when I was very young. Mother married Randall Matthews when I was seven.”

  “Randall Matthews!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know he had a son.”

  Jordan’s eyes turned flat as obsidian. “He doesn’t.”

  Oops.

  “Uh, of course,” she stammered. Everyone knew Randall Matthews, the entertainment and media mogul, and she supposed she’d always been aware of a wife in the background, smiling for the cameras, but never a mention of a son. Stepson, she corrected herself. A man who came into a boy’s life when the boy was very young would surely take the place of the deceased father, wouldn’t he? Depended on the man, she supposed. And the boy.

  Then she realized the reason she hadn’t made the connection: different last names. She wondered if that had made Jordan feel like an outsider. His mother and stepfather had a marriage but had they ever been a family?

  Still, she knew names didn’t really matter. Gran and Gramps had a different last name from hers because she had her father’s name and that hadn’t made them any less of a family. But she also knew that symbols mattered, and so had Gran and Gramps, and that was why they went to the trouble and expense of officially adopting her. They had wanted her to keep her father’s name to honor him, too. All of those things had been symbols that mattered.

  Though Sadie sometimes wished she’d known her parents and would have liked a sister — or maybe a brother — she’d always been part of a family and never doubted her place in it, never doubted how loved she was. Even now that Gran and Gramps were dead and all she had left was Aunt Gertrude, the love continued. The family went on.

  She glanced at the ring on her left hand. Symbols mattered a great deal, and not just to children.

  “Here we are,” Peter announced as the car slid to the curb outside the hospital’s main entrance.

  “Give me an hour,” Jordan said, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut behind him before Sadie could even get out. Peter put the car in park and came around to open the door for her before she could even gather her wits. Did Jordan want her to accompany him or not? Had he shut the door because he’d already forgotten she was there? Or was it simply that he expected her to get out on the other side of the car instead of sliding over? He was an extremely perplexing man.

  She saw that he’d left the bag with his book on the seat. She picked it up. Peter made a significant gesture with his head so she climbed out of the car and went into the hospital after Jordan. She caught up with him as he checked in at the front desk and was being directed to his mother’s room.
>
  With an exasperated sound, she tugged on his arm as he turned away from the attendant. She’d heard of men being able to compartmentalize the various aspects of their lives, but this was ridiculous. “Hello. Remember me?” she said. The dratted finger of compassion had her using a nicer tone of voice than she intended.

  He glanced down at her and blinked as if it was taking him a moment to place her. Then he said, “I’m distracted,” running a hand through his hair. She stifled the urge to smooth it down. Soothing tormented souls was so not in the job description. How pathetic was it that she had to remind herself of that?

  “It’s been a long day,” he added. “And I’m not used to having people with me.”

  Apparently, that was his idea of an apology. She shrugged philosophically. He did have a lot on his mind. She took his hand and almost dropped it. She’d forgotten about the tingle. Even in a hospital corridor, even after he couldn’t remember she existed, her hormones were revving up. Willfully ignoring the sensation, she pulled him toward the elevator. She tried for a flippant tone. “We’re engaged. Try to remember.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. Sadie, like anyone with any kind of imagination, did not like hospitals, but she was willing to overlook her own discomfort to offer support when a friend or family member needed it. She knew you just had to square your shoulders and be as cheerful as you could about it. Jordan seemed more reluctant, staring at the panel of floor numbers before selecting one, then watching the indicator lights as they blinked with each passing floor. She could practically feel him willing the elevator to slow down.

  Sadie understood. When Gran had gone into the hospital for what turned out to be the last time, Sadie had dreaded each visit while also wanting to spend as much time with her beloved grandmother as possible. Gramps had died without warning, a heart attack while he was puttering in his shop out back. She had never figured out if that was easier or harder, getting the pain all at once.